Tada… a fanfare for the new DGNB website. And because there are so many novel features to discover, we’ve decided to provide you with a brief overview of the most important changes we’ve made in a three-part series of blog posts. Setting the ball rolling: our website relaunch – www.dgnb.de.

Probably the most obvious new thing about the DGNB website is that we’ve completely changed the look and feel of our online presence. It’s worth taking a closer look to see which parts of the website are now different. Probably the most important change revolves around our idea of bringing together three areas under the same umbrella. With immediate effect, we no longer have three separate microsites for the association, our certification activities and the academy of the DGNB. Instead, everything to do with our online communication has been pulled together.

New navigation and website structure

The new DGNB website is now structured in content terms to turn the spotlight on our key area of interest: sustainable building. To do this, the new website offers different toolkits. These provide users with background information on topics such as climate protection, circular building, biodiversity or ESG and sustainable finance.

There are also separate sections explaining our services and other offerings, with additional information on DGNB Certification and the seminars run by the DGNB Academy. If you’re interested in upcoming events and any other activities the DGNB is involved in, you’ll find what you need to know in our training schedule – or try out our event search feature.

Make the most of the DGNB – the starting point for users depends on the target group

One completely new area on our website is a section we’ve called Making the most of DGNB. The idea is to help website visitors find offerings according to the areas they work in or their personal backgrounds. We’re aware that it can be quite tricky getting your mind around all the different topics we’re involved in, not to mention the broad portfolio of services we offer at the DGNB (especially if you’re still getting to know us).

You might wonder things like: What do I stand to gain by becoming involved in the activities of the association? Where can I meet interesting members? Is certification worth considering for the project I’m working on? And if so, what type of certification? Would it make sense for me to do a training at the DGNB Academy and become an official expert? Or are there seminars about to take place that could help me?

To make it easy to navigate to the right area, the new DGNB website now offers distinct points of entry for specific target groups. Each entry option shows all content that we think might be particularly interesting to each target group.

Handy tips and materials for people involved in communication

The website also now has a section for anyone interested in drawing on the activities and information offered by the DGNB for their own communication, offering plenty of useful tips. In this area you’ll find everything from downloadable style guides on using DGNB logos to more overarching information, such as ideas for PR executives and marketing managers.

We’ve also given the website newsroom a complete facelift and expanded it. As well as offering press releases, it contains plenty of interesting links and numerous options to download content. It’s especially worth mentioning our new image database, which is aimed at everyone working in the media, with photos, graphs, diagrams and a variety of DGNB logos that will come in handy for journalists.

Download documents without the red tape

Until now, every time you were interested in downloading PDF versions of our DGNB publications, or the criteria sets we use for our certification, you were expected to fill in a form, wait for an email and then click on a link to access your download. You’ll be pleased to know we’ve now changed the system to allow you to register once free of charge, sign in and hey presto, all publications can be downloaded immediately at the click of a button. Of course the option to order hard copies for free is still available.

You can also use your account details to book training courses through the DGNB Academy or register for events organised by the association.

You might also be interested in knowing more about our DGNB members. Feel free to browse through the list of member profiles and find out who our nearly 2400 members actually are and who is working with us as a non-profit association. Or find out if there are any developments or projects near you that have successfully gained DGNB Certification.

Find out more about the myDGNB networking platform and DGNB User Accounts

We hope you like the new DGNB website as much as we do. If you’d like to offer us any feedback, we’re always happy to hear back from you. Feel free to email us your thoughts by writing to online@dgnb.de. The relaunch of our website is happening to coincide with two further innovations when it comes to our online presence: myDGNB, our new digital networking platform, and DGNB User Accounts. We will introduce both to you in Part 2 and Part 3 of this series of blog posts.